Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 3D Conversitions vs Native 3D

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-02-2015, 07:18 PM:

I never saw THE CLASH OF THE TITANS the first movie to be converted from 2D to 3D but I heard how dreadful the 3D was. Shortly after that release, I saw the CONAN movie and it too was a 3D conversion and the image I saw on the screen looked like normal 2D with and without the glasses. As a 3D supporter I kept going to 3D showings and found movies converted to 3D were getting better and better. When TITANIC and JURASSIC PARK were converted to 3D and shown in theatres , I went and saw both of them in a IMAX theattre. A short time later TOP GUN was also converted and shown in IMAX and all three movies in 3D were superb!. When I watch movies shot in native 3D like Reedly Scott's GODS AND GENERALS and compare it to converted movies like GRAVITY or PACIFIC RIM, I no longer can see the difference. It is no wonder, most 3D movies released to theatres now are conversions.

The movie that convinced me the most of how good 3D conversion can be was when I bought the 3D Blu Ray of the WIZARD OF OZ and watched it saw how fantastic the 3D looked from a movie that has been around exactly as long as I have.

-Claude

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 07-02-2015, 09:43 PM:

Fox needs to re release The Sound Of Music in 70mm 3-D & Dolby Atmos®!

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 07-02-2015, 10:10 PM:

Considering Sound of Music was a Todd-AO film, it was already released in 70mm. :-)

I could also see an Atmos release; just because the system has the capability of overhead speakers doesn't mean the film is required to use them.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-02-2015, 11:02 PM:

Sorry fellas but this thread is not about THE SOUND OF MUSIC, Todd -AO, 70mm or Dolby Atmos. It is about 3D conversions

-Claude

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-03-2015, 12:01 AM:

A great deal of Gravity was CGI and 3D rendered for two camera eyes, even if a bunch of live action stuff was 2D. IIRC, some of the 2D elements were shot on 65mm film to provide sharp enough imagery for 3D conversion purposes.

There is some gray area about native 3D production versus 2D to 3D conversions. That has to do with the push and pull to increase (or decrease) the 3D depth effect. This is easier to accomplish in rendered realistic looking CGI stuff or digital cartoons rather than a 100% live action image.

Anyone who has done some work in Adobe Photoshop™ masking objects or pulling them out of backgrounds can tell when a 2D to 3D conversion is pretty crappy or even when just plain 2D CGI stuff is awful.

Edge detail is a big deal. It's critical if the edge is part of an object that's supposed to be floating in 3D space above another object (or if it's a border of a CGI element and a live action element in an ordinary 2D movie). Look out for hair, grass, power lines, smoke, water or any other stuff with fine particles. If you have a live action element with that kind of thing in it bordering on a CG thing it spells trouble (or time and money).

The really crappy 3D conversions have some blurry damned edge detail. Object volume is another thing. Even if the edges on floated objects are sharp, if they don't have proper volume than it all looks like a bunch of 2D cut outs floating over the top of each other. How much work will the crew put into all the background elements to give them depth, volume and perspective? Only as much as time and the budget will allow.

Even if the 3D is well done it can still have the very unintended effect of making things look SMALL. Customers really want the 3D to look like 3D, but real life 3D is not always the most obvious looking thing unless the stuff is really close. So the "filmmakers" spread the two camera eye views apart to amplify the depth effect. But in doing so they change the sense of scale. It really isn't much different than that tilt-shift lens effect to make big real life objects look as if they're in miniature.

While 2D to 3D conversions may have become better, the whole 3D thing has more room for improvement.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 07-03-2015, 04:48 AM:

Part of the reason the Clash of the Titans 3D was so awful is because it was a rush job. After Avatar was raking the cash with 3D, that's when the rush to release in 3D started. If I remember correctly, Clash was pulled from the calendar, given a 2-3 month rush for the 3D conversion, then release. On the other hand, the last GI Joe was held back something like 9-10 months to do the 3D conversion. So it really depends on how much time goes into the conversion.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-03-2015, 04:27 PM:

I never got the 3D Blu Ray of CLASH OF THE TITANS Justin but I heard they went back to work on the film and the 3D is said to be better than the way it looked in theatres.

Bobby, you must have very sharp vision to see all the flaws you mentioned about converted 3D films but how is it possible to be aware of them when you make an effort to avoid 3D films in favor of 2D films with your beloved Dolby Atmos sound?

-Claude.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 07-03-2015, 05:36 PM:

Where 2D to 3D conversions often cheap out is in the scenes where the 3D conversion needs to create data out of thin air. So not just depth information being added, but if there are simply missing pixels to fill in the gaps which occur due to the difference in perspective from left and right. If you shoot a movie with 3D post-conversion in mind, you ideally could prepare for this, but it limits your camera angles dramatically. Most cheap conversions choose to flatten the image rather than to fill in the gaps, which would require frame-by-frame manual reconstruction.

There is another general problem with 3D, amongst many others: Depth of field.

In my humble opinion, the whole "depth of field" thing doesn't fly with 3D. To me, all blurry objects with non-zero parallax (and thus convening depth information) just look fake. In a 3D scene, all objects should be focused. If you look at an object in the real world, you will automatically focus on this object, if you do so in a 3D movie, but the object is blurry, it will not become sharp. It will result in a conflict situation.

A general issue for all 3D content is that your brain needs to work overtime and some people just cannot handle it. The problem is that the planar depth of many objects doesn't match the "focal depth". Your eyes need to focus on the screen, not on the supposed distance the object is at.

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 07-04-2015, 09:29 AM:

What I asked for 'Claude' is for The Sound Of Music to be converted to 3-D some time. Blue Ray or cinema 3-D release. I think If they had the 70mm Todd-AO neg It may look better in 3-D when If and when they Fox does the conversion. I buy many Blue Ray 3-D movies from China, movies like Vertigo, North By Northwest, never made in 3-D but they do a good job with the 2-D to 3-D conversion. So many people are jumping in on the 3-D conversion, even ordered L&H in a colorized 3-D version of March Of The Wooden Soldiers! The only problem with most of the re do to 3-D movies today is they lack things from coming out at you, It's all depth not much pop out of the screen like the old 1953 movies had. I ordered Titanic 3-D & Top Gun 3-D but have not watched in 3-D yet.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-04-2015, 05:32 PM:

Terry, You are truly a 3D fanatic and more than me I am very happy about that. It is just amazing how people in two countries, the United States and China have different opinions about 3D movies. They love it there but the majority of people here totally dislike it. So much that Disney has stopped releasing their movies in 3D on Blu Ray in the United States and Canada although they are still releasing them to theatres in that format.

I do not think American motion pictures studios like Fox and others will ever convert their classic films like THE SOUND OF MUSIC to 3D because the novelty of it after AVATAR has passed long ago, I am however very happy they are still producing and releasing movies in 3D to theatres and except Disney on Blu Ray.

I have and will alway love 3D ever since I saw my first 3D movie, BWANA DEVIL in a theatre during the '3D Golden Age' in the early fifties.

-Claude

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-05-2015, 01:47 PM:

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
Bobby, you must have very sharp vision to see all the flaws you mentioned about converted 3D films but how is it possible to be aware of them when you make an effort to avoid 3D films in favor of 2D films with your beloved Dolby Atmos sound?

You don't need really sharp vision to spot flaws in a 2D to 3D converted movie where the conversion was a rush job. The same thing goes for rush job CG effects in 2D movies. All you have to do is pay attention to the list of objects or materials I mentioned earlier that are difficult to mask, isolate or float or extend out of the background. The bad conversion jobs remind me of the auto-generated 3D of terrain and buildings in Google Earth. It's very sloppy looking, almost like the buildings and other stuff is melting. Google even replaced accurate 3D building models in some cities with this auto-generated garbage.

The movies with the best 3D quality are almost always shot natively in 3D. Animated cartoons have an obvious advantage where the 3D can be rendered for each camera eye.

Most people who care at all about 3D and its details do not like 2D to 3D conversions. While some may be well done many just come off as fake 3D just to get a few more dollars out of the customer's wallet.

As for Dolby Atmos, the Atmos-equipped theater I usually visit to watch movies with Atmos audio does not show movies in 3D. Its screen is too big for a single projector 3D system to work properly. I don't mind. 2D on a big screen often gives a movie a better sense of scale. Plus there's only a $1 surcharge on the $9 regular ticket price to enter that house. I'd be paying $13 or $16 to see the same movie in 3D at other theaters.

Theatrical Atmos is pretty unique. 3D isn't. Lots of theaters can show movies in 3D. And if I really want to see a movie in 3D I always have the option to see the movie on Blu-ray 3D if I missed the 3D version in theaters. I can't duplicate a real Atmos sound system in my home. The early Atmos home theater receivers and Blu-ray discs aren't nearly as elaborate as the theatrical Atmos process.

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 07-05-2015, 05:57 PM:

Thanks Claude for your note. It's so sad that in the USA you can't find good rare 3-D Blue Ray movies. I just bought a Blue Ray from England of the first ever 3-D movie I saw as a kid at the Fruitvale Theatre in Oakland CA IN 1953. It's Fox's 'Inferno" These out of the USA 3-D Blue Rays are not bootleg copies they are the original movie by the studios and they play just fine and look great on my Samsung 3-D TV. Inferno is even in stereo sound. It's no loss about Disney as most of their 3-D films are converted and mostly look bad in 3-D. Hope to see ya Claude some day in Hawaii!!!

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-05-2015, 11:02 PM:

I also have INFERNO on Blu Ray in 3D, Terry. I also saw it at the Liberty Theatre in Honolulu in 3D during it's first run in the early fifties The 3D is outstanding. I got it from Amazon uk along with the Disney titles, FROZEN, MALEFECENT and BIG HERO 6. Of all the Disney movies I mentioned, only MALEFICENT was converted but the 3D is not bad at all. Yes, it would be nice if you come to Hawaii for a visit

-Claude